Chapter 2: Content 101 — The Fundamentals

Now that you understand the common ideas and conversations surrounding content production, this chapter explains the fundamentals you need to know before doing a deep dive into the individual content types. As you work through this chapter, remember that this information applies to any content format, even if certain topics seem more applicable to a specific type.

2.1 Types of Content

We cover six main content categories in this textbook: written, video, photo, audio, user-generated, and “other,” which includes graphic art and motion graphics. Each category will have its own in-depth coverage, but for now, it is important to know that these are the categories we are generally referring to when we talk about content types.
Keeping these in mind as you move forward in this textbook will help you understand how to use these different types independently or in tandem to achieve your practice’s business or marketing goals.

2.2 Content Consumption Constants

The dawn of the digital era transformed the way people consume content in more ways than we could ever mention. It provided exponentially more access to content platforms, broadened consumers' palates, and gave businesses in all industries a clear and direct method of communication with their consumers. As the complexity of the internet developed, savvy digital marketers learned how to take advantage of those trends to create highly targeted content for specific demographics, dramatically shifting the amount of content people consume.
The principles of content consumption are always changing, but there are perennial constants that can help you develop a better understanding of how content works in the real world.

People Process Text and Visuals Differently

Humans process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.⁽¹⁾ Visual content is not only processed faster, but it is also widely available to a larger audience and typically better at attracting attention and retention. Textual content, however, excels at creating online engagement, deep dives and complex explanations, search engine optimization. Since the primary way search engines operate is through written content, the only way to be successful in your digital marketing is to include textual content in the program. Having both content types is not only helpful, but it is also necessary. 

Digital Content Consumption Continues to Grow

Today, more than 5 billion people (roughly 63% of the world’s entire population) use the internet to access information and consume content.⁽²⁾ Not only are more people turning to the internet for a variety of needs, but the quality of the access they have also continues to improve. From 2007 to 2017, the average internet connection download speed in the United States spiked from 3.67 to 18.75 mbps. In 2022, 5G coverage offered by T-Mobile can reach as high as 110.6 mbps.⁽²⁾

Social Media Continues to Rise

INFOGRAPHIC OF INFO BELOW

Considering that the internet is close to 15 years older than social media⁽³⁾, you would expect the total number of users to be significantly larger than the number of social media users. However, recent data shows that of the 5 billion internet users throughout the world, 4.65 billion of them also use social media.⁽⁴⁾ But it's not just the number of people that social media engages that is remarkable. Over the last ten years, the average amount of time spent on social media platforms increased by 57 minutes, skyrocketing from 90 minutes in 2012 to 147 minutes in 2022.⁽⁵⁾

Attention Is Waning

Microsoft Canada made headlines in 2015 when it published its report on human attention spans.⁽⁶⁾ In the report, data showed that the attention span of the average person was now around eight seconds — a four-second drop from the 12-second record reported in 2000 and four seconds fewer than that of a common goldfish. Many news organizations around the world picked up the study and published headlines to the tune of “You now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish.”
The actual data for that stat came from Statistic Brain, and it appears that, while it might be a simplified and sensational explanation, there is legitimate research to support the claim. This issue of attention, known as the Goldfish Conundrum, has been driving the state of content for many years now. When you know that people are prone to losing interest in your content, you have to find new and interesting ways to grab and hold their attention. Creating content with this in mind helps you mitigate the effects of a disinterested audience.

Mobile Reigns Dominant

The shift toward mobile dominance has been steady. In 2017, Google announced that it would start rolling out mobile-first indexing, which means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the webpage for indexing and ranking on the search results page.⁽⁷⁾  Since then, Google has completely rolled out mobile-first indexing, and mobile optimization and responsive design have become a standard in the digital marketing world.

Responsive Design: A website design that changes based on the resolution of the device being used in order to deliver an experience that is optimal for many different users.

This change in Google’s approach stems from the rapid growth in mobile device use, even in recent years. From 2015 to 2020, the number of mobile phone users has grown from 4.15 billion to 4.78 billion.⁽⁸⁾ That is an increase of roughly 630 million people over a five-year span. 

GRAPH: MOBILE PHONE USERS (IN BILLIONS)
2015 = 4.15, 2016 = 4.3, 2017 = 4.43, 2018 = 4.57, 2019 = 4.68, 2020 = 4.78

With that level of growth, anyone looking to be successful in the digital marketing ecosystem needs their program to be mobile-optimized, including, and especially, their content.

2.3 Evergreen vs. Topical Content

When thinking about the level of investment you want to put into content creation, one of the major considerations is whether the content is evergreen. Evergreen content gets its name from being relevant or applicable for a long period of time. It doesn’t need to be immortal, but it should have a shelf-life of at least a few years, especially if you are exhausting a lot of resources developing it.
Examples of evergreen content include long-form pages on FAQs, “how-to” guides, histories, testimonials, tutorials, and even content spelling out industry jargon. The “ultimate guide” genre is an excellent example of evergreen content that is often updated to maintain relevance. There, thousands of words of information are compiled together to create a holistic view of a particular subject.
Another example of evergreen content is a video covering “understanding the basics of photography.” The general mechanics of photography have been the same for decades. Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are foundational parts of a camera that will not likely see change anytime soon. Therefore, a video covering how those settings work and affect a photograph will likely not lose relevance anytime soon.
On the other hand, a video titled “How to make your photos look more modern” is limited by the definition of “modern” at the time. For example, there was a period when the “Dutch angle” was a popular trope in photography. This technique tilted the camera on the X-axis to make the subject of the photo diagonal.

EXAMPLE OF DUTCH ANGLE

While considered a “modern” style to its contemporaries, that compositional style fell out of favor among photographers after a few years, and today, most photographers say to line up your horizons and subjects with mathematical accuracy. If you had made a “how to” video on using the Dutch angle at the height of its popularity, that content would have had a strong chance of seeing high traffic and engagement. That same video today would likely not earn any significant number of views, meaning the investment is no longer providing a return.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make it anyway. Topical content, or content that concerns itself with a trend or current public conversation, is still a valuable form of media. Virality is nothing to scoff at, and most things that go viral are topical because topical content is interesting, sensational, and newsworthy. Topical content receives a huge boost in interest and traffic simply by virtue of joining the public conversation. The last thing you want to do is forgo a good idea just because it isn’t evergreen; you might rob yourself of the chance to circulate your messaging to a massive audience.

Example: BIA-ALCL

Let’s consider how to create both evergreen and topical content using an example from the medical aesthetics industry. In August 2020, a report was released tying a condition known as breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, or BIA-ALCL, to a specific group of textured implants ⁽⁹⁾. According to that report, there were 733 BIA-ALCL cases worldwide. Of those cases, 36 of the diagnosed patients died.
Headlines detailing the report immediately surfaced, and women with implants nervously contacted their surgeons to ask if they should have their implants removed. Most of them answered no since BIA-ALCL was only a significant concern in patients with textured implants, and even more specifically, implants from a specific textured implant brand.
But the public still demanded answers, and many content creators had to figure out how to talk about the report and consequential concerns. If the content creator wanted to create evergreen content, the best approach would be to talk about it from a simple informative perspective. A well-written blog or dedicated webpage, an easy explainer video, or even an infographic could explain the basics about the condition without being tied to the recent report too explicitly.
If the content creator wanted to engage in the public conversation, a blog with a catchier title like " Do I need to have my breast implants removed” would be a more topical approach. You could also create a video titled “Five Things to Know About BIA-ALCL Before Having Your Implants Removed.” A social media post using sliding images and an informative caption with relevant hashtags is also a great way to get into the conversation.

2.4 Organic vs. Paid Content

Another category coupling your content falls within is organic or paid. We discuss advertisements and other ways you can pay for content to produce results later in this textbook, but for now, you should understand that organic means the content provides value simply by existing. Paid content has value because there is a marketing budget behind it. Think of organic content as your webpages, blogs, and social media posts, whereas paid content is your advertisements.

B2B vs. B2C

Your practice is most likely B2C, or business to consumer. If you sell a service or product to another business, you may also be regarded as B2B, or business to business. Understanding where you fall is essential because the approach you take as a B2C practice is much different than a B2B one. Why? Because the needs, desires, and objections you face with patients are different than those you encounter from businesses. Your content should reflect those differences.  

2.5 Content and SEO

The relationship between content and search engine optimization is a complex one. You will explore more in-depth strategies and best practices later in this textbook, but it is vital to have a fundamental understanding of how these two concepts relate to one another as you move forward through the material. The first important fact to remember is that the rules of what makes good content for search engines constantly change.
In the early days of SEO, search consoles like Google used the raw number of keywords (among other factors) to determine the relevance of a page to the user's query. A keyword is a one- or two-word phrase that matches up with something someone is searching for. For example, someone might have asked Google “What is Botox.” Google then decides how relevant your page on Botox is depending on the number of times your content mentions “Botox.”
In years past, keyword saturation was a primary metric. Once people figured this out, copywriters would flood their content with as many references to the keyword as possible. At the time, this would lead to good results on Google and other search engines.
Today, this practice is called keyword stuffing, and it damages your content’s ranking.⁽¹⁰⁾ When this changed after Google’s 2011 Panda update, it was a big shift in the way Google determined results, but smaller changes that have impacts on how content should be produced for search engines happen all the time. Short-form videos became more favored than long-form, alt text became hugely important for any photos living on your site, and annotations became necessary to win video snippets—the list is exhaustive.
Those types of updates are always right around the corner, and search engines are steadily moving away from creating content based on short-form keywords and toward creating content that feels natural to human speech. In this ecosystem, developing rich content around long-tail keywords (fully developed questions like “How long is Botox recovery?) is much more useful and effective. 

Choosing Between Content and SEO Best Practices

It is common for content and SEO teams to run into disagreements on the details of content production. Writers invested in their craft sometimes use literary tools that aren’t best suited for search engine success, while SEOs may sometimes stick so closely to the confines of best practices on Google that creativity suffers. The same can occur in video, audio, photo or any other type of content.
In these instances, it is best to consider the goals for the content. If the aim is to keep people on the page longer and build relationships through the content, then those storytelling devices could help. If the goal is to draw prospective patients to that page, then it is probably better to use the SEO-driven approach. Optimize as well as you can to hit the benchmarks that a particular piece of content will be judged against.

2.5 Legal

Waivers

Whenever you use a patient in your content, you should have them sign waivers and/or releases to make sure you are not liable for any potential lawsuits down the road. These documents need to cover a range of topics, including what type of content is being produced, what the purpose of the content is, what information of the patient’s will be used, where the content will be used, when it will get used, who the patient is authorizing for use, an age acknowledgment, legal guardian acknowledgments, contact information, a “change of mind” clause, compensation explanation, signature, date, and likely other sections depending on your use. This information needs to be presented in a single form to be read and signed by the participating patient. 

Licensing and Copyright

It can be overwhelming to figure out what content you can and cannot use in your marketing material because of all the different terms that come into play. Here, we break down a few of the most common licensing terms to give you a baseline understanding. 

Copyright. A legal protection that keeps original creative work from being used without the owner’s consent. You cannot use this material unless given explicit permission by the owner.

Trademark. A legal protection used to keep practice names, slogans, logos or other similar assets from being used without the owner’s consent. These are used to differentiate your practice from others. You cannot use this material unless given explicit permission by the owner.

Patent. A legal protection that prevents other entities from duplicating how your product or service works or appears. 

Creative Commons. A non-profit organization that offers different types of licenses to share creative work. Each of the licenses requires attribution, but the level to which the content can be modified or used in commercial settings differs. You must check the specifics of each license to ensure that you are using them legally.

Open Source. Typically reserved for programming code. It allows anyone to use this content on their own projects and is typically hosted online for easy access. You can use material under an open-source license without legal concern.

Public Domain. Creative work that is no longer protected by copyright law. You can use this content without any permission from the owner and without restrictions. Public domain occurs when copyright expires — most notably in the works of famous artists and poets.  

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Eu turpis egestas pretium aenean pharetra magna ac. Ut lectus arcu bibendum at. Arcu bibendum at varius vel pharetra. Urna id volutpat lacus laoreet non. Id porta nibh venenatis cras sed.

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